WEIRD STUFF, DUDE / Coen brothers up to the same old shtick with crime caper `Big Lebowski'

Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Critic

Published
4:00 am PST, Friday, March 6, 1998

Jeff Bridges is pot-smoking space cadet the Dude, also known as Jeffrey Lebowski, who gets swept up in a kidnap-ransom scam.

Jeff Bridges is pot-smoking space cadet the Dude, also known as Jeffrey Lebowski, who gets swept up in a kidnap-ransom scam.

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Jeff Bridges is pot-smoking space cadet the Dude, also known as Jeffrey Lebowski, who gets swept up in a kidnap-ransom scam.

Jeff Bridges is pot-smoking space cadet the Dude, also known as Jeffrey Lebowski, who gets swept up in a kidnap-ransom scam.

WEIRD STUFF, DUDE / Coen brothers up to the same old shtick with crime caper `Big Lebowski'

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Paunchy, behind on rent and stone-cold unemployed, the Dude is the laziest man in Los Angeles County. He's the last person on earth that kidnappers would reasonably mistake for a millionaire with a trophy wife -- which is the central joke in "The Big Lebowski," the Coen brothers comedy that opens today at Bay Area theaters.

The Coens -- director/co-writer Joel and producer/co-writer Ethan -- have a lot riding on "The Big Lebowski," which stars Jeff Bridges as the Dude, a man whose major accomplishment is league bowling (he even listens to tapes of past tournaments on his Walkman). The movie co-stars Julianne Moore and Coen regulars John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and John Turturro.

"Lebowski" is the Coens' first outing since winning screenwriting Oscars for "Fargo," and although some of its parts are brilliantly executed and played by a terrific cast, the result is scattered, overamplified and unsatisfying.

Borrowing elements from the Coens' earlier films "Barton Fink" and "Raising Arizona," "Lebowski" is a nightmare crime caper about a poor pot-smoking chump who gets swept up in a kidnapping scam that's beyond his comprehension. Two thugs break into the Dude's shabby Venice bungalow, mistaking him for a Pasadena fat cat with the same name, and urinate on his rug.

The Dude says wait, you've got the wrong Jeffrey Lebowski, "I'm El Dudereeno, His Dudeness" -- and before you know it the Coens have crafted a sticky, impenetrable web of extortion, embezzlement and overlapping, double-crossing kidnappers. David Huddleston plays Bridges' namesake, the man they call the Big Lebowski, and Moore, an actress whose versatility seems boundless, shows up as his fiendish, oversexed daughter Maude, an artist who splashes paint on a canvas while flying by on an elaborate trapeze.

The Coens have a grand time establishing Bridges' character, and the bowling alley scenes they've written for the Dude and his buddies -- a loose-cannon Vietnam vet played by Goodman and a nearly wordless dunce played by Buscemi -- are pure gold. You can have all that ransom shtick: I would've been happier hanging out in the bowling alley for the whole picture.

"The Big Lebowski" is ultimately too clever for its own good. There are more ideas here, more wacko side characters and plot curlicues than the film can support, and inevitably it deflates from having to shoulder so much.

Saving graces include the photography by Roger Deakins ("Kundun"), the music by Carter Burwell and most of the performances. Goodman might do some great things now that he's free of "Roseanne," Turturro is totally unhinged as Jesus, a bowling-alley braggart with gold teeth and a purple jumpsuit, and Bridges seems born to play the slothful Dude.

Think back to "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," the 1982 comedy, and you'll remember Spicoli, the surfer dude played by Sean Penn. Now add 15 or 20 years to his surfer-blond head, a few pounds from that Kahlua habit, and you'll come up with the Dude.